Generally, navigation applications for mobile devices operate by downloading a map to the device corresponding to a pre-calculated route or an estimated area in which the user of the mobile device intends to travel. Using a mapping service, generally offered by a web-based provider or data maintained on a personal computer or server, the user specifies a starting point, a destination, and potentially stop-over destinations and a static route based upon the these locations is then calculated. A complete map of the route is downloaded to the mobile device.
There are significant limitations to these existing navigation applications. First, the navigational route is static and bound to a given starting point and destination. There is no ability to dynamically change the route stored in the mobile device should a user determine to alter course. Second, in most cases the map data is vector-based and only one map type is supported, i.e., the resolution may be adapted, but it is not possible to change the map type, for example, from a street map to an aerial view, a topographical view, or other potential view. Further, such navigational applications do not account for limitations on device capabilities, for example, limited memory for map storage and limited processor allocation. Additionally these navigational applications in most cases only support map data rather than any kind of location-based data that maybe of interest to the user of the mobile device.